SkyMaxx Pro v3.2 Has Been Released!

[Tamper22]

Do you have a suggested specification to run RWC and Skymaxx pro V3.2  anywhere on the website?  I have not downloaded the update yet but my brother has and he said it hit his Frame rate, whereas your update notes suggest that less VRAM is used?

Kind Regards

Tamper22

 

[jfim88]

Guys a little cuestion of a noob. I use SMP and RWC. To use NOAA i need to select the real world weather in XP menu or no?

Enviado desde mi iPhone utilizando Tapatalk

[Denco]

1 hour ago, sundog said:

My understanding is that your download counter gets reset when new updates are released.

Cool  

 

Thx

[StefanH75]

Unfortunately there are no noticable improvements for me in terms of cloud coverage vs. performance. If I go for max. coverage, the clouds are still ending far away from the horizon and the performance drops significantly. If I reduce the coverage, then the performance is ok, but there is no cloud coverage. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I doubt it. The clouds are lovely to look at - the best you can get in X-Plane - but that's it. Good if you're flying below FL150.

I'm afraid I need to stay with default clouds and according texture modifications. I've attached some screenshots, so you see what I mean. Please note the fps and altitude.

 

[MercuryMat]

Uff...same thing for me. Performaces for IFR high altitude flights are really poor even with 3.2 version, expecially when there is more than 25/30% cloud coverage, even when reducing visibility to 20000 (less is completely unuseful for IFR flights). Clouds are nice...but I had the same effects with the very first version of SMP years ago...I was expecting something more...at the moment for me SMP it is not usable. Much...MUCH better performaces with standard clouds or with free/pay upgrades...

[Cameron]

18 hours ago, StefanH75 said:

I'm afraid I need to stay with default clouds and according texture modifications. I've attached some screenshots, so you see what I mean

I can't actually really see what you mean in these screenshots. What I see is Real Weather Connector active and displaying a mix of long range overcast (which in the middle appears to go to horizon) with a "hole" in coverage on left and right side, vs a slightly more inaccurate "assumption" for what X-Plane thinks is going on there in the default screenshot.

If you want to test the two out correctly, disable real weather.

Case in point...

I have just run a test at 28,000 ft (sorry for the quality, I'm using laptop for these images). I maxed out cloud detail in X-Plane rendering settings for default clouds, and I maxed out cloud draw distance for SMP clouds. The results are shown below:

[Tchou]

What I see (and you don't seem to) is that the clouds don't go to the horizon with smp and he's only at 22000ft, it should get worse at 41000 ft whereas it does with the default clouds and with 15 fps more with default clouds. 

[Cameron]

What I see (and you don't seem to) is that the clouds don't go to the horizon with smp and he's only at 22000ft, it should get worse at 41000 ft whereas it does with the default clouds and with 15 fps more with default clouds. 

My screenshots clearly show clouds going to the horizon (and at a higher altitude). It also clearly shows a considerable fps increase.

What you're still failing to see is such tests are not applicable with real weather active. When RWC is present the METAR reading is much more precise, whereas default is an approximation. Therefore, comparing the two with real weather active does not demonstrate cloud distance draw between the two appropriately.

[Tchou]

19 minutes ago, Cameron said:

My screenshots clearly show clouds going to the horizon (and at a higher altitude). It also clearly shows a considerable fps increase.

... Provided you fly only defaults plane at low res with low settings, without any anti aliasing (HDR off ?) over no scenery at all.

I agree with you...

I don't want to bash SMP, it's a very good product if you fly low altitude, a great add on if you fly ga planes for example but for airliner flyers (someone said IXEG ?)  it's too demanding, even on a high end computer. (For now at least..). 

Edited June 6, 2016 by Tchou

[Cameron]

50 minutes ago, Tchou said:

... Provided you fly only defaults plane at low res with low settings, without any anti aliasing (HDR off ?) over no scenery at all.

As soon as I am back to my desktop I will post images which prove your statement incorrect. It does not matter which PC I am on, the result is the same (and I run extreme on the desktop). Regardless of how you feel things work for you, your computer does not define what may happen on everyone else's or even the majority.

I'm not sure how we got on this debate anyhow. You're coming at this from a different angle than the context of this dialogue. The debate was really if SkyMaxx Pro v3 is even capable of producing clouds up to the horizon, and as demonstrated, it IS capable of doing such as of version 3.2 (and much more efficiently, as many customers have reported to us).

50 minutes ago, Tchou said:

a great add on if you fly ga planes for example but for airliner flyers (someone said IXEG ?)  it's too demanding, even on a high end computer. (For now at least..). 

I absolutely disagree with this. I personally ONLY fly jetliners, especially IXEG. With 3.2, not only are my FPS greatly improved, but the distance for which clouds are drawn is drastically improved. I understand you feel differently, but there has been a HUGE response in kind to what I have said all over social media, in our e-mails, and on a few forums. So, we can easily agree to disagree here.  As long as the majority doesn't see if your way I feel comfortably with where we're at and how things are heading.

[StefanH75]

1 hour ago, Cameron said:

My screenshots clearly show clouds going to the horizon (and at a higher altitude). It also clearly shows a considerable fps increase.

What you're still failing to see is such tests are not applicable with real weather active. When RWC is present the METAR reading is much more precise, whereas default is an approximation. Therefore, comparing the two with real weather active does not demonstrate cloud distance draw between the two appropriately.

I would be glad if you can point me to the right direction. I really like SMP, but until now not at high altitudes. I'll do the settings as you have suggested only later. Need to sleep now ;-)

[Tchou]

40 minutes ago, Cameron said:

As soon as I am back to my desktop I will post images which prove your statement incorrect. It does not matter which PC I am on, the result is the same (and I run extreme on the desktop). Regardless of how you feel things work for you, your computer does not define what may happen on everyone else's or even the majority.

Looking forward to see that, and as I said I like SMP clouds so I'd be really glad to see your settings (X-Plane and SMP), maybe there is something I didn't get to configure right on my computer. 

if that helps me to enjoy Flying Airliners with SMP that would be great... (B733 (over 100hours) and Tu-154m (10h since friday) are the only ones I fly recently). 

[StefanH75]

Tonight I was able to do another comparison. I hope I made it in a right way this time.

The aircraft I used was Aerobask Victory v1.1.3. The reason for this choice was, that I wanted to have a practical user perspective. I believe stock aircraft do not represent the majoritarian usage of X-Plane. This payware aircraft is not very performance consuming like others, but still a decent plugin based aircraft. The altitude of the Aircraft was 26000ft.

I've set the weather manually, any real weather plugin was switched off. One cloud layer was set between 10000ft and 12000ft, the 2nd cloud layer between 25000ft and 27000ft (all cumulus bkn).

SMP was set to max. cloud area coverage of 40000 sq. km. The fps is at ~43, quite good and the clouds are looking close to real clouds. Very beautiful. I have expected a higher density of the clouds, but like this it is ok as well. What I don't like is, you can still see the end of the cloud coverage area.

I have then switched off SMP with the plugin manager. X-Plane is loading default clouds then. If you now compare with X-Plane default clouds (tweaked with UWX textures), the second cloud layer I've set before has appeared. So the plane is flying in the middle of the cumulus clouds, as it should be. The fps are higher, almost 50, which corresponds to 14%.

As a second test I have increased the altitude of the second cloud layer between 31000ft and 33000ft.

But still no second cumulus cloud layer with SMP.

Back to default clouds, the second cloud layer appeared and also the end of the cloud coverage area is hardly or even not possible to catch. Also the density is higher and I think it is quite good corresponding to the weather datarefs of X-Plane.

What I have recognized regarding the missing 2nd cloudlayer with SMP, this will appear when the clouds are set to cumulus ocast. Maybe there is a bug.

So, if there is something wrong in my SMP setup, please let me know. I really eagerly want to use SMP, but my priority for clouds is not for the most beautiful shape, but more real appearance regarding density, different cloud layers and coverage area.

[sundog]

What's happening above is that SkyMaxx Pro is seeing a request to create cumulus clouds at extremely high altitudes, and assuming that data was sent in error. Cumulus clouds do not appear at 30,000 feet in nature. It automatically converts any requests for cumulus clouds above 7,000 meters (about 22,000 feet) to cirrus or cirrocumulus clouds instead, in order to maintain realism.

It's not a bug, it's a feature. (Seriously!)

Edited June 8, 2016 by sundog

[StefanH75]

1 hour ago, sundog said:

What's happening above is that SkyMaxx Pro is seeing a request to create cumulus clouds at extremely high altitudes, and assuming that data was sent in error. Cumulus clouds do not appear at 30,000 feet in nature. It automatically converts any requests for cumulus clouds above 7,000 meters (about 22,000 feet) to cirrus or cirrocumulus clouds instead, in order to maintain realism.

It's not a bug, it's a feature. (Seriously!)

Hi Frank,

This makes sense. I didn't know that, as I am no meteorology expert. Thanks for clarification.

Since there is no comment to my other complaint, I assume that I'm facing software limitations, possibly intentional to avoid performance issues. What do you think about creating those wonderful fluffy puffy clouds in a more limited coverage area, for example adjustable to max. 20000 sq. km. Then with a soft transistion creating clouds with less details up to the coverage area as X-Plane does by default. Shouldn't the result be a more realistic coverage area as you can see on the screenshots? At the same time the performance shouldn't be affected that much. I'm curious about your thoughts on this.

[sundog]

If you turn up the visibility in your weather settings, I think you'll see clouds drawn out farther with SMP in your test above.

Keep in mind too that the very distant clouds in the default engine are just a static ring around you. With SMP you can see individual clouds come into view at the edge of the visible area, and fly toward them the whole way. We really try to minimize the use of "smoke and mirrors".

 

[X-Plane Australia]

Just wanted to say thanks for the update. Don't know what you've done but I've seen a massive performance increase. I can now run SMP and RWC at a 20,000 Sq Km! Thanks  

[Denco]

I think that the new update is great but I am experiencing a small problem. In general the performance is way better in the latest version than before. I can run with Could distance set to 10000 without any problems. 

Anyway the problem I'm facing is with stuttering. I get stuttering mostly when flying the 767 once I take off with cloud distance above 10000. The stuttering is so sever I have to reduce cloud distance to 5000. I've also experinced the same, but not that severe, stutters flying the carendo C310. I'm also posting my video to see that my frames were good and on what my problem is.

 

 

Edited June 10, 2016 by Denco

[gpb500]

Difficult to see in your video but I had the same exact thing happen today while not flying.  Was working on some scenery and was getting 70 fps or so while still, but could not move (free camera mode) smoothly at all until I disabled Skymaxx via the plug in manager then it was perfectly fine.  I couldn't figure out what the issue was, there were very few clouds.

[sundog]

Denco & gpb500 - how much free memory is reported in the SMP configuration screen when this happens?

 

[Denco]

10 hours ago, sundog said:

Denco & gpb500 - how much free memory is reported in the SMP configuration screen when this happens?

 

Vram usage was 2300MB out of 3000MB and my RAM usage was around 10000MB out of 32000MB. One of the reasons why I at first dismissed this problem when flying with the FF 767 was because my VRAM usage was at the limit. You can clearly see my RAM and VRAM usage in the video since afterburner was running in the background.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Denco

[gpb500]

13 hours ago, sundog said:

Denco & gpb500 - how much free memory is reported in the SMP configuration screen when this happens?

 

Fired it up this morning to check, 300MB free with the slider about 30K....reduced to 25K and 400MB free and better, still a little stutter but the frame rate doesn't drop from 70 to teens when panning.  This morning, with different conditions (some fog), I'm at upper 30s FPS stationary and it maintains that while panning...no difference.  Even though I still note a little stutter I don't see it reflected in the FPS number.  Again, this is in free camera mode and probably less or not noticeable in a plane.

[sundog]

Denco, I have to admit I don't see a stutter in the video you  provided. Maybe it's my browser but I see one frame that just goes totally black, but I'm pretty sure that's not us.

If you're entering very cloudy conditions for the first time, I'd expect maybe a few very small stutters as new clouds get loaded up (but subsequent clouds should be created very fast once those new clouds are cached.)

In the end you have to find the right balance between appearance and performance for your system and your personal preferences. The cloud draw area slider is the easiest way to strike that balance. 

And we're always working to find ways to push the envelope on performance further. Some stuff's already in the works for SMP4 in that regard.

 

[Denco]

2 hours ago, sundog said:

Denco, I have to admit I don't see a stutter in the video you  provided. Maybe it's my browser but I see one frame that just goes totally black, but I'm pretty sure that's not us.

If you're entering very cloudy conditions for the first time, I'd expect maybe a few very small stutters as new clouds get loaded up (but subsequent clouds should be created very fast once those new clouds are cached.)

In the end you have to find the right balance between appearance and performance for your system and your personal preferences. The cloud draw area slider is the easiest way to strike that balance. 

And we're always working to find ways to push the envelope on performance further. Some stuff's already in the works for SMP4 in that regard.

 

The stutters are constant and can last for a long while. I know about the stutters being hard to see to an untrained eye but believe me that when I pan my view around its otherwise very fluid while on the video it's very sluggish. I'm actually waiting for ASUS to release GTX 1080 in my country so I'm hoping it will fix my problem.

[Denco]

I wonder if this is somehow FSGRW related. I'm doing a flight from Miami to Atlanta without it with skymaxx cloud distance set to 40000 and have absolutely no stuttering.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Denco